The present invention generally relates to high frequency semiconductor devices and more particularly to logic gates which utilize ballistic electron phenomena.
Some in the art have sought to design logic gates for manufacture in smaller packages yet capable of producing faster computing power. For example, some have turned to using transistors in logic gates for performing logical operations in a digital circuit. As transistors become both smaller and more powerful, some researchers have sought solutions to deal with the inherent problems that come with the small sizes demanded by some of today's applications. As researchers continue to scale down the sizes and ramp up the speed of electrical components, heat generation and electrical leaking become larger and larger problems.
Some transistors may be designed to actively control the flow of electrons. It is known to manufacture transistors by forming a sandwich of two materials; the center material is controlled via current/voltage so as to either permit electrons to flow across the sandwich, or to halt their flow across the sandwich. It is the starting and stopping of electrons that causes great amounts of energy, typically in the form of heat, to be released.
A prior art transistor may register a “one” as a collection of electrons on a capacitor, and a “zero” when those electrons are removed. One drawback to this method is that it takes time move the electrons on and off the capacitor (refill time) limiting the speed of the transistor and the output for the circuit. A second drawback is that these prior art transistors may produce immense amounts of heat when that energy is emptied.
It is known in the art to form logic gates by chaining transistors together. However, such designs may suffer from undesirable heating and leakage problems. Additionally, some chained transistor designs amplify the drawbacks of single transistors and may provide undesirably slow operating performance in unnecessarily large packaging.
As can be seen, there is a need for a high frequency logic gate using ballistic phenomena.